Ill try and explain myself better.

The sex was probably what lead me back into a relationship with him again. My marriage wasn't great at the time and I stupidly told him that the sex was lacking. So that was his first in. Innocent enough at first but it got more and more. We don't live in the same area, so he came up with the idea that if I was unhappy with the sex with my husband I should look elsewhere for sex only. At first I said no, I wouldn't do that. After months of his coaxing, he talked me into finding other unhappy married people to have sex with. And I did. And of course I had to tell him all the details.... Eventually it lead to sending pictures etc.

It's funny you should mention BDSM. I think that was what got me hooked again. I am interested in being submissive and my husband and I played around with it. When I told my spath about it, he became more excited and more interested in me than ever before. Whenever I said no to him he would say "but I own you" or would pull back his affections until I did something to "make it up to him" for "disappointing" him. He would also say things like "you need me because no other man could ever give you what you want". And I believed it for a time. But I soon realised it wasn't a real power exchange when I realised my boundaries were never reapected, the goal posts always moved. It was like if I did one thing or slept with one guy, he would say "well, you've done it once, it should be easier to do it next time."

An of course I liked parts of it. The attention I felt lacking in my marriage was there. But that's what abusers an manipulaters often do isn't it? If you like just enough of them, you seem to overlook the other parts.

Yep, mine was into the whole BDSM thing too. I'm not ashamed of the sex we had- like others have said, it was great. Even after I went NC with mine a couple months ago I've often thought about having a couple last flings with him. Not seriously considering it, just more of a 'wouldn't it be nice if' kind of thing. As for the giving, it went both ways for us.

At the end of our relationship I found he'd joined a local group sex site a few days before I left him. You have no idea how fortunate I feel for avoiding that... not only the potential STDs if/when he indulges in all that but the situations he might've created if he tried to get me to join in at some point. No thank you.

As for the cognitive dissonance- it was a solid two weeks for me before I understood why I was carrying around as much anxiety as I was, and another week before I began noticing any real improvement with it. However, I've been in therapy throughout the whole thing so without a doubt this is helping me work through it.

You were not a fool for "falling" for what you did. You were manipulated just like the rest of us were. However, while I think it's important to accept that fact I also think it's important to own the role we've played as well. We did make poor choices while we were with our Psychopaths. We have to accept that and forgive ourselves, and learn from it. We'll be stronger for it and then we won't be so willing to move those goal posts anymore!

It's a wisdom we gain through all this.

Well, yes, LOL, that's true, Shayna, hopefully minus the STD...

I made a joke about using a "safe word" and he told me that his favorite reply is, "that's not it". Ew. Can you even imagine? I can't...

So it's been a few weeks of no contact.

He is still emailing (infrequently- about once a week). Which, in my mind confirms, for me that I don't mean anything to him. It helps me confirm everything I know. I hope and pray that he is justly flicking me an email every once in a while, hoping that I'll give in and respond. But I still have huge fear about being exposed. That he will tell my husband. I have the hope that by exposing our relationship, it could negatively effect his own marriage- and I'm pretty sure his marriage is important to him, as his wife comes from a wealthy family and he gets free holidays and perks from her family all the time.

I hope I am unimportant to him, but I won't know until he makes a move.

How do you deal with the fear? How do you get past the idea that they know all of your weaknesses and will use them, embarrass you, shame you or humiliate you?

Hi Normal

It's been two months of NC for me, but I've also blocked him from everything so I haven't gotten anything from him because he has no way of doing it. He has slandered me right after I left him to the people he knows were closest to me and I've had to work hard to repair those relationships. Some were easier than others, but each one took time. A lot were lies, there was some truth, but in the end the people he contacted don't care about his disorder so I found trying to tell them about it was a dead end, so I focused on repairing the damage with what he said.

It's always in the back of my mind that he'll reach out again but since then I opened up to nearly everyone with what happened and what's going on, so it's easier now. The initial blast from him was very, very hard to get through and it made my life very hard for a while, but as time passed it got easier. I never lost any friends over it. Most everyone knows what he's about to some degree now so it's easier to think whatever he does will reflect on him now and not me.

I know you feel that you're not in any sort of position to do anything preemptively though, and you never know, your Psychopath may never do anything... but you'll have to accept that some day you may have to deal with it all too, and that's a pretty heavy burden to carry. You may even decide telling your husband is an option. We all make mistakes in life. I don't know what to tell you about dealing with the fear, I can only tell you what I did. I no longer fear my Psychopath at all.